Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Sunday, February 2, 2014

candlemas ... i still like the story of simeon, even if i amn't religious ... we used to sing a nice version of nunc dimittis in malmesbury abbey back in the 1950s ... by stanford, in C























http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlemas

this is the best version i can find on the internet ... closest to the way we sang it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CEDIL0O7k

the painting is by giotto, in padua

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Thursday, January 30, 2014

waldemar, carry on up the rococo ... nuff said, do watch !





















http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03slvhy/Rococo_Travel_Pleasure_Madness_Pleasure/

Monday, January 27, 2014

nice observation on the benefit of piano practice during nine-minute interview with rusbridger for a german tv channel











http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/weltspiegel-guardian100.html

we englischers can listen to the whole of the conversation in the second of the two fillums



Saturday, January 25, 2014

waldemar ? and how do you spell januszczak ? that man is so totally unpardonably sans souci ...


















http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03sg830/Rococo_Travel_Pleasure_Madness_Travel/

saturday ... vexed by my inability to sleep late, i wake at five and read the introduction to japanese drawings by j.r.hillier, studio vista, 1965, chucked out by the library because it was too old ... and scan in some favourites






































hillier, himself a collector, writes that artists such as these made a living from paintings and prints .... and surprisingly few of their actual drawings were kept



Friday, January 24, 2014

phew !



















parked the truck in reigate high street for a compulsory driver's rest break ... popped in to a stationers to get these stickers for alvi ... was very tired so fumbled for change ... the tired looking woman took my three pounds and turned away without a word

walked one hundred and fifty yards to oxfam bookshop ... searched through kids section ... put hand in pocket to count spending money ... not there !

a sixty-four-and-a-half-year-old running a hundred and fifty yards through heavy traffic and crowds must be an alarming sight

phew ! my last eighty quid still untouched on the counter

Friday, January 17, 2014

ceres paying homage to venice by veronese ... oh ! but i really do want to go back to venice before too long






3BT

A tiny hawthorn bush, but not at all young, and long since “topiarized” into an elegantly gnarled ellipsoid, stands leafless and grey-brown in the garden of a splendid house on Mayfield High Street, and comes suddenly alive as a flock of sparrows, chattering and screeching, enters the tangle of its branches and are instantly camouflaged.

At the bottom end of Kings’ Avenue in South London, as the schoolchildren go home, three pairs of identical twins in a hundred and fifty yards.

A letter from a dear friend looks up from the mat as I stagger home at the end of a fifty-six hour week.  It is a long newsy reply to the long one I'd only posted on Monday.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

alvi does glue ...


... here's one he made earlier


whaddya mean ... de-contextualized ? images begged, borrowed and or stolen from .... pauline at http://www.theoldposthouse.co.uk, eric ravilious, and last but never least, dame lady duchess the marchioness her rightfully royal highness, the mistress of the rag rugs, sheila evans, nominally titular queen of the gwendraeth valley



















































they also serve, who only stand and wait ...











When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve there with my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask.  But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.  His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.